This conference was organized in response to concerns about western water & natural resources mgmt. & the region's apparent growing vulnerability to extended periods of water shortage. Includes papers presented during plenary sessions, preconf. workshop summaries, a summary report from the working group sessions, & a plan of action for drought mgmt. in the West. Covers: ecological & environmental concerns; river basin mgmt.; energy; fish & wildlife mgmt.; mitigation; planning & policy; urban water supplies, virtual drought models, etc.

Significant vulnerability of water systems to drought is a common issue of water resources management in Mediterranean regions. This is due both to the increasing occurrence and severity of drought events and to the growing demand for municipal, tourist, and agricultural uses. The INCO-DC project entitled "A Decision Support System for Mitigation of Drought Impacts in the Mediterranean Regions" (DSS DROUGHT) addresses this issue, contributing to an improved management of water supply systems for irrigation, which represents the most consumptive sector of water resources uses in the Mediterranean region. In order to develop a comprehensive approach toward improved operation of irrigation systems under drought conditions, the project was developed around the following five main, strictly interconnected tasks: Identification of drought characteristics at a site and over a region Modelling irrigation management under conditions of water scarcity Modelling operation of water supply systems under drought conditions Integration of the developed methodologies within a Decision Support System software package Definition of requisites for Drought Watch Systems The research resulted in an advancement of knowledge through in-depth analysis of innovative methodologies, the development of tools to help decision-makers in coping with droughts through the implementation of the developed procedures in software packages, and the application of these tools to the case-studies identified by partners in their countries.

This report is designed to help water managers & planners who are not expert in modeling, & modeling experts in one area who are interested in surveying available models in another area. Covers: model development & distribution org's.; general-purpose software; demand forecasting & balancing supply with demand; water distribution system models; ground water models; watershed runoff models; stream, hydraulics models; river & reservoir water quality models; & reservoir/river system operation models. Inventory of selected models appendix. Tables.

Describes the lessons learned of the six-year California drought (1987-1992). This report will improve the mgmt. of water resources during future droughts in California & other states. These lessons capture the views of some 100 interviewed participants representing 57 organizations in California that manage or influence the mgmt. of water. The participating organizations represented Fed., state, regional, & local water supply agencies as well as environmental, private & governmental entities that influence water management in the state.

Describes methods for improving water mgmt. during drought developed during a 4-year study. The methods were tested & refined in 4 filed studies in different parts of the country, in which teams of water managers & users worked together to reduce drought impacts. This report explains the procedure for coop. Fed.-state Drought Preparedness Studies, to indicate how these studies relate to the longstanding principles & guidance for Fed. water resources investigations, & to indicate the means of implementing conclusions arrived at in any given region. Tables.

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology for estimating space-time stochastic properties of local climatic factors reflecting global climate change. Specifically, daily precipitation amount and daily mean temperature are considered and illustrated with application to the state of Nebraska, U. S. A. Furthermore, a drought index with and without global climate change is examined. The magnitude and consequences of regional response to anticipated climatic changes are uncertain (Houghton et al. , 1990). Typical questions to be answered are: can time series of hydrological events or 10cal climatic variables such as daily temperature be conditioned in scenarios of future climate change and if so, how can this be utilized ? Can extreme historical drought events be reproduced by a stochastic hydroc1imatological model ? Can such a model be used with General Circu1ation Model (GCM) outputs to evaluate the regional/local effects of climate change scenarios? The approach presented in this paper is an extension of the usual analysis of regional hydrometeorological impacts of climate change: we propose to examine time series of GCM produced daily atmospheric circulation patterns (CP), thought to be relatively accurate GCM output to estimate local climatic factors. The paper is organized as follows. First, daily CPs are classified and analyzed statistically, first for historical and then for GCM produced data. Next, the height of the 500 hPa pressure field is introduced as an additional physically relevant variable influencing local climatic factors within each CP type.

Droughts and their management are a serious challenge to water resource professionals. While droughts predominate in arid regions, their frequency and severity in more temperate regions with more abundant rainfall have been on the rise. Drought Management and Planning for Water Resources provides an essential collection of planning and manag

This book focuses on mega-droughts of the past 20 years. Twelve cases from both developed and developing countries are elaborated in the book. Its intention is to draw lessons from the cases of extremely severe water shortages so that countries and stakeholders can be better prepared for extreme drought events in the future. Several recurrent themes emerge from the diverse case studies and descriptions of programs. For example, most chapters discuss the necessity to move from reactive (compensatory) to preventive policies. This theme has implications for use of insurance in developing countries, e.g. is insurance encouraging investments to help countries avoid disasters or is it acting mostly in a humanitarian way to compensate for losses to help people? Several authors point to the importance of risk assessment and to developing risk based policies for drought. This raises statistical issues of how such assessments of uncertainty and risks are done and how they relate to actual occurrence of events. Most chapters call for more inter-sectoral policies, policies which integrate water resources management approaches and to the necessity of raising public awareness of droughts in times of no drought. The issue of structural versus nonstructural is clear in most cases. While often cast as ‘either/or’ the message that emerges is more one of how do you integrate these approaches. Finally, a few chapters bring to light how prevention is needed for national security as well as water security. In Focus – a book series that showcases the latest accomplishments in water research. Each book focuses on a specialist area with papers from top experts in the field. It aims to be a vehicle for in-depth understanding and inspire further conversations in the sector.